Driving Home For Christmas
by NoEarlyBird
Summary: Kai decides to take a last-minute train ride home for Christmas and at four in the morning has a lot of craziness to put up with.


Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the characters, do not make money with this, and do wonder if this is really necessary.

**A/N**: Hi everyone!

I'm back with another Christmas oneshot - short and rather unconventional, but I guess it still counts. I honestly thought this year I wouldn't write one because December was so busy that I didn't fine the time. Then I went out last weekend and on my ride home there was just way too much inspiration around me so here we are. ^^ I hope you enjoy Kai's snarky commentary on his ride home for christmas and wish you all happy holidays! ~Bird

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**Driving home for Christmas**

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It was four in the morning. Kai was tired. So tired that he barely dared to blink, because he felt like he'd fall asleep if he shut his eyes even for a second.

There was a guy on the opposite side of the aisle who'd managed to star-fished across four seats. Kai considered this quite an accomplishment, considering it was a compartment of two sets of double seats facing each other.

The train pulled to a stop. The doors opened and in with a breeze of freezing air came a crowd of most peculiar people. Amongst them were a handful of guys, about to burst with testosterone. One of them gave Kai a nod and began to do pull-ups on one of the racks people were supposed to hold on to for support or place their luggage upon.

Kai rolled his eyes. Primate. He averted his gaze and stared out the window again. It was pitch-black out.

"Hey, you there!"

The drawled words reached Kai along with a strong scent of alcohol, so strong Kai felt reminded of gasoline. He decided to ignore whoever it was that had addressed him in such a charming manner. He was hardly ever in the mood to talk to strangers, and this certainly was not one of those rare moments.

"Oi, you there!"

The drunk did not give up so easily. Kai didn't move, except for the furrowing of his brows. Since when had 'Oi you there!' become the proper begin of a conversation? Eventually Kai heard some rustling behind him, followed by footsteps. 'You there' had given up. Finally.

As the night was still pitch black outside the windows, Kai let his gaze wander inside the train cart, feeling he might die of boredom otherwise. His eyes fell upon a girl that had just sat down in the double-seat opposite him. She was bobbing her head to the music blasting from her headphones and tapping her foot along. To Kai's great puzzlement she was wearing ballerinas that were so clearly not cut out for Russian winter. Kai wondered briefly if that was why she had decided to cover herself from head to toe in confetti, but then figured that she, like so many others, enjoyed playing with the off-products of stapled stationary. It was one of those things Kai would never understand. He could only imagine the places those pieces of paper would end up in...

His attention was then directed to a group of young men that walked, more like tumbled, down the aisle. They seemed to travel in packs tonight. This particular group looked less athletic than the last. Kai decided he liked them better already. Then they collectively broke into song. Kai reconsidered immediately. At the top of their voices they were singing what could have been anything from a soccer hymn to a Christmas carol. Judging by the general reaction around him Kai figured it was the latter - the majority of the people were smiling, a reaction he had frequently observed in all things Christmas related, no matter how distasteful or displeasing to the ears.

Kai could for the life of him not share that sentiment and considered for a moment to ask confetti-girl if she would sell him her headphones. Maybe he should 'hey you there' her - that seemed to be the appropriate greeting this time of day. Unfortunately for him, confetti-girl had reached her stop, got up and left, taking her headphones with her. Kai was left gritting his teeth and praying that the carolers would soon follow her example. Or shut up. He'd be fine with that too.

Kai sighed and stared out of the window again. Never again! Never again would he ride a train at this hour. Why he even was on this train, at four in the morning on Christmas? Well, he had been at his grandfathers estate in the country side. Voltaire was getting strangely sentimental in his old days and desperately tried to patch up his relationship with his grandson. Only, Kai thought, you could not patch up what had been blown to pieces years and years ago. He blamed it on the Christmas spirit that had even taken a hold of the Blitzkrieg household that he had agreed to spend the holidays at his grandfather's. Once there, Kai had felt more irritated by the minute. Finally, when after dinner his grandfather had begun a mushy speech about Christmas and family, Kai had snapped. He'd wordlessly left the room, stormed up the stairs to get his belongings and rushed back down faster than one could sing 'oh holy night'. He'd told his grandfather that he concurred wholeheartedly that Christmas was to be spend with family, and that that was where he was going now. And he'd left.

So now, hours later, he was on this train headed for Moscow - for home. He, and all the party people of the country. Eventually even the carolers got tired, but Kai still felt an immense sense of relief when the lights of the city appeared in front of him. A little while later he finally stepped off the train and filled his lungs with the cold crisp air of the night - or rather the early morning! As he stepped out of the station the bells rang six o'clock. Around him, the city was slowly coming to life. Christmas morning. Kai smiled. Soon, his housemates would be awake too. They were, with the exception of Spencer, early risers anyway, but at Christmas especially because Bryan with child-like excitement always kicked them out of bed at the crack of dawn. Right, so he'd better hurry.

Kai waved down a cab and with the promise of a nice tip, the driver took him across town in the blink of an eye. The lights upstairs were going on one by one as Kai walked up to the door. Bryan must have just begun his rounds. What a child he was. If the world ever found out about this, or the fact that Bryan went crazy for hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows, he'd have a pretty hard time maintaining his bad-boy image. Kai opened the door and stepped inside. The smell of pine and oranges, mixed with a hint of what Kai guessed was last night's eggnog greeted him. A wave of warmth washed over him, and it wasn't just the fact that the inside of the house was considerably warmer than a Russian December morning. Just when Kai closed the door behind him there was a commotion on the stairs and one by one they appeared in the hallway: Tala, Bryan, Spencer and Ian.

Tala was the first to notice him and froze on the spot, causing Bryan to bump into him.

"Ouch-... what the-..."

Before an un-christmas-y insult could come across his lips, Tala said, "Kai!"

"Kai!" Spencer called out as well and smiled broadly. "You're home!"

And Kai smiled back at them. Yes. He was home. Home for Christmas!

**The End**


End file.
